5 facts about the Chinese gaming application market

    Henry Fong , CEO of Yodo1 , shared with Gamasutra his vision of the Chinese gaming market. Yodo1 itself helps Western publishers enter the Celestial market, which is one of the largest iOS and Android markets.

    We wrote about this on our App2Top website and saw considerable interest in the material from mobile application developers. We offer you, Habrausers, information for thought.

    1. Most of the paid game downloads in the Chinese App Store are in Western titles

    In fact, 8 of the top 10 games in the Chinese App Store are made in the west. For example, at the moment, Plants vs Zombies by PopCap (EA) takes the first place in the game top of paid games, and Fruit Ninja - the second. And despite the fact that local games are being sold quite successfully in China, most of the paid downloads still fall on Western projects.

    2. Chinese users prefer f2p games

    The Chinese do not like to buy games, but in fact they spend a lot in them. Having chosen their favorite game among the entire free variety of the App Store, they are ready to spend large amounts through the IAP. Now all 10 games of the Chinese top App Store are free. According to unofficial sources, the top f2p games in the smartphone version earn $ 1-2 million per month on IAP alone: ​​that's twice as much as six months ago.

    Why exactly f2p mechanics?

    3. The Chinese show off their virtual content

    This fact is contrary to the preferences of Western players who do not like to demonstrate their achievements and bonuses in games. Chinese players, by contrast, show off their purchases and trophies. This is consistent with the current concept of conspicuous consumption in new China, when luxury goods play the role of high-status symbols.

    Such preferences are fairly easy to use when planning the game’s monetization mechanism. For example, you can add the ability to put some bonuses on the user's avatar. Or turn on the service of acquiring additional in-game social status with premium features.

    4. MMO is popular in China

    For most Western developers, MMOs are mostly PCs, but Chinese users are actively playing similar projects on mobile devices. And 10 of the top 10 box office games in the Chinese App Store are MMOs or projects that are very close to them in spirit. And MMO ports on iOS or Android, such as Three Kingdoms or World of Warcraft, already have millions of users.

    5. The disadvantages of the Chinese market

    The Chinese market for mobile applications has a number of problems: fragmentation (there are more than 100 Android devices in it alone) and piracy. As for the second, you can protect your content and income by tying the password identification and IAP payment to an external server. In any case, as advised by Henry Fong, working with a local publisher will help companies get rid of many of the problems that are likely to be encountered in the Chinese market for mobile gaming applications.

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